


and what am i supposed to do, when the best part of me belongs with you?

by da_vinky



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: And so do I, Angst, Other, Peter Nureyev Needs a Hug, Post-Episode: s01e18 Juno Steel and the Final Resting Place, So much angst, canon typical levels of pining, i would like to cry please, juno's only really mentioned but to be fair he is mentioned a lot, no betas we die like men, you can really tell i love to suffer huh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:20:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26830561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/da_vinky/pseuds/da_vinky
Summary: Peter Nureyev is alone, and Juno Steel is gone.--Pretty much just Nureyev's side of Juno leaving in the final resting place. Look I know we all want them to be happy but have you considered: I love drama
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	and what am i supposed to do, when the best part of me belongs with you?

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from Breakeven by The Script. do with that what you will goodnight gays.

It’s three in the morning. 

  


Peter Nureyev is alone, and Juno Steel is gone. 

  


The traffic never stops in Hyperion City, the sirens keep wailing and the horns keep honking, even when you feel that they shouldn’t. It seems impossible that the outside world is the same. It seems impossible to think that one small thing has shifted what seems to be the entire world, and yet everything is the _ same.  _

  


He sits up, pulling the duvet tighter around himself. It’s cold without Juno and his constant warmth next to him, colder than he’d like to admit. Nureyev’s hand falls to the empty side of the bed, fist clenching in the sheets. He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t cry. He simply closes his eyes and pretends he checked into this hotel alone, so waking up this way wouldn’t utterly break him. 

  


It isn’t working.

  


Peter throws back the covers and lurches to his feet, pacing back and forth across the carpeted floor. There’s mud on them, Juno had never learned to wipe his feet at the door… He growls so he doesn’t sob. 

  


Is he losing his touch? To tell someone those secrets you wouldn’t trust with anyone else, for them to do the same… And then they leave. Nureyev wasn’t quite used to rejection,  _ especially  _ not rejection that stung quite this much. He’s… embarrassed. Nothing like confessing your love to a lady and then having him walk out on you not an hour later. 

  


Thinking about it, Juno hadn’t really even said it back. Had he meant them, all those words? He didn’t seem the type to string someone along so eloquently, so maybe he had just been bending the truth… No. Juno Steel was a terrible liar and a worse actress. Had he simply… changed his mind? Started to know the  _ real  _ Peter Nureyev and decided he wasn’t worth it? 

  


He crosses to the window, pressing his forehead against the chilled glass. Condensation blooms against his skin, fogging up his view of the rain-slick streets below. The lights blur together, turning into a hazy mozaic of other people’s lives. A couple watching a late night stream, a man calling his family in another time zone, a little kid staring up at the blue tint of the dome and the endless sky beyond it. So many moments… Peter wonders if there was someone looking up at  _ him  _ and thinking the same thing. He wonders how they’d interpret it. Maybe they’d think he was waiting for someone instead of having just been abandoned. Maybe they’d think he was with someone, letting them rest as he lay awake. Maybe they’d think he had things to look forward to. 

  


The irony was that just hours before, he  _ had.  _ He’d had everything to look forward to, and he had thought Juno did too. Apparently not. 

  


And yet some part of his brain wouldn’t let Juno Steel leave. Some part of his brain, a rebel against Nureyev’s carefully cultivated systems, wouldn’t let him go. It just kept replaying his smile, so telling no matter how hard he tried to conceal it, his eye, brimming with enough defiance and determination for two, his voice and how it softened whenever he said his name. Peter closes his eyes. 

  


He isn’t going to scream, he isn’t going to cry. He’s going to pretend Juno never existed, like he’s done to so many others. 

  


But even though the hotel room is impersonal and almost sterile, everything in it is Juno. A scuff mark on the wall from a boot kicked against it. The sheets crumpled just so on his side of the bed, pulled up at the base where his feet were. The footsteps on the floor, the warmth in the air, the memory of his laughter into the pillows. It even smelled like him, like smoke and rain and more like home than anything he’s ever known. And so no, he couldn’t just forget him. He couldn’t just evict Juno from his brain, erase him from the harddrive, wipe him off the board. Nureyev was going to have to sit with this forever, this raw  _ ache  _ in the shape of Juno goddamn Steel. 

  


Why wasn’t he here? The thought felt plaintive and small, but it was _true. Why wasn’t he here?_ They’d gone through so much. Nureyev had bandaged his wounds, killed for him, cried for him, and he thought _he_ was the one who got to walk away? Juno knew his _name,_ the key to his whole identity, and he thought he could leave, just like that. He wrenches his face away from the glass, pacing back to sit on the bed. Peter was tired. Emotionally, physically, however you please. Juno was exhausting. 

  


And he loves him. 

  


Goddamn it, he still loves him. Ever since he met him, saw him trying to crawl out his office window. That kiss as Rex Glass… Juno had thought it was a ploy. In fact, the key to the safe was but a bonus. Peter couldn’t leave without doing that just once. And he’d never know, since the damn fool had abandoned him in this forlorn hotel at midnight without even a note. 

  


Even Nureyev had had the decency to leave a note. 

Sprawling back onto the bed, Peter Nureyev stares at the ceiling. The plaster was combed into ridged spirals, interlocking with one another in a dizzying, endless pattern. Everything was so complicated. Usually, Nureyev thrived in complications, but this time… This time, he wanted things to be simple. He wanted a simple life with the lady he loved, and he couldn’t even get that. 

  


But again, he was good at pretending. 

  


He could pretend that this was on purpose, that they’d been hurtling towards this end from the start. He could pretend away the hope, the whispered promises, smooth the edges of Juno Steel, the man who broke his system. He’d shove him into a box and not care if some of the corners broke off, because Juno had broken off more than a corner when he’d left him here. 

  


Goodbye, Juno. 

  


_ I wish we’d gotten to see the stars.  _

**Author's Note:**

> I only wrote this because I saw an animatic and felt the need to CREATE!!
> 
> The animatic was just jupeter set to RAIN by Ben Platt, so lots of emotions were had. (It's by The Channel Without A Name on youtube please watch it)


End file.
